Does anyone know why they suddenly start to increase several fold sometime after the Excelsior was produced? It was NCC-2000, and the Federation apparantly had been using NCC listings for over a hundred years, perhaps reasonable if all the larger ships have NCC registries. Then we see numbers in the 70000s less then a hundred years later! This must have something to do with listing shuttles and other support craft, but is there an official explanation of the change in rate?
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
None that I know about. It is quite possible that they simply started listing many types of ships that were previously not in the NCC listing, or had a NCC - (letter)### registry (not than any exsist outside of the animated series and fandom...)
Another possibility is that prior to the Excelsior (we've seen nothing quite as drastic as the 1701 refit since), Starfleet periodically refit it's ships to extend lifetime. This could explain the NCC-1017 registry of the Constillation as a refit ship as well.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
It's also possible that the NCC system was revamped once or twice. Perhaps after the 23rd century, Starfleet began allocating NCCs according to the year of commissioning - NCC 10000-11000 for the year 2301, NCC 74000-75000 for the year 2365, and so forth. That way, many of the NCCs are in fact left unused, so there are far fewer ships than NCCs.
Interestingly, NCC growth seems to only occur when we aren't looking. During the two decades of TNG, DS9 and VOY, we were stuck with registries in the 74000-75000 range... Another system change, perhaps?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Ultra 2 Legit 2 Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Listen, Bucko, the way I've thought of it was that, say, like in the olden-tyme crap, whenever this Star Trek bullhockey was old and not new or had like whatever the hell, in the 2200's, the NCC system wasn't exclusively NCC numbers, but might have been a combination of useless goddamn prefixes like NCC, NX, NCV, NERD and soforth. They're all Starfleet ships, or whatever, they've all got some blue-assed dude and some vulcan-assed dude and then like some hot human-assed chick who probably puts out to the captain, and I hate Peter David, but maybe NERD designates a Hyper Dreadnought with Fifteen Nacelles, right? But they totally are like numbers from 0 to 10000 or whatever the hell.
Then, some enterprising young man, probably Kirk, totally punches out some old admiral and then kicks him while he's down and then sits in his chair and lights a stogie.
To make a long story short, as of 2312 or some crazy backward-assed goddamn year that these Star Trek shits are still wearing their little pyjama suits, from that day forth, instead of NERD vessels being NERD-9865, they're all like NCC-shitinyourmouth numbers.
Posted by Capped in Mike (Member # 709) on :
i like the way he thinks
Posted by Futurama IV Shizzle (Member # 968) on :
lets get him a bigger chair to stand on
Posted by Capped in Mike (Member # 709) on :
i've researched registries for a while, and have concluded that they are quite logical and sensibly assigned within the conventions and standards of Starfleet.
We simply have no idea what those standards and conventions are.
Starfleet is definitely growing at an exponential rate, and registry number usage had increased with the advent of the warp-powered small craft, which was technologically difficult in the 22nd and 23rd centuries.
Also, they are never sequential, seeing as there are still 7XXXX, 6XXXX and 5XXXX registries being originated simultaneously in the mid 2370s, just as ships commissioned in the mid-to-late 23rd century had registries ranging from 6XX, 10XX, 17XX, 18XX, and 21XX simultaneously or previously to the 20XX and 25XX registries of 2285.
Also, there's some question as to the length of the Defiant.
Posted by Futurama IV Shizzle (Member # 968) on :
And the Bird-of-Prey.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
As Federation space expanded and additional production facilities were built, the number of ships designed and produced in a given time period would go up. Like... alot.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Ironic detatchment is hard work.
Posted by Neutrino 123 (Member # 1327) on :
quote:Originally posted by Capped in Mike: Also, there's some question as to the length of the Defiant.
Hmmm, so it's a semi-rhetorical question. Interesting.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
It's possible that the "NCC" registry system back in TOS applied to Starfleet (read: Exploration) only and that the Federation itself had hundreds of older ships available for potential defense- broken up into "home fleets" of the races that had built them prior to joining the Federation.
As older ships were de-commisioned they were replaced with the new "NCC" ships of starfleet.
The "numbers explosion" would be caused by an entire generation of older spacecraft being replaced by all -new- "NCC" starfleet ships replacing those once found in indivual race's pre-membership fleets (starting sometime before the TMP era).
Additional new Federation member's fleets would either be replaced or (probably) given "NCC" numbers as they were brought into the starfleet. Each new member-world might bring doens or even hundreds of additional spacecraft (including free-traders, freighters, defense ships and transports).
Make sense to you guys?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Ironic detatchment is hard work.
It helps when you're sociopathic.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Sure.
Posted by TSUGambler (Member # 1355) on :
I have no evidence of this, but I strongly suspect that the NCC numbers are not continuous. You might have a chunk of numbers in the 20000 range set aside for one starship class, and then another chunk of numbers in the 45000 range for another class. Leaves room for building additional ships of a particular class that have NCC numbers consistent with their class, instead of running out of room and assigning non-contiguous numbers.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I presume to assume that the numbering is haphazzard, at best, and is designed to make no sense to anyone that is classified as TPTB, which the numbering makes perfect sense in that the registry numbers are pulled, somewhat painfully (at a minimum I'd hope), out of the ass.....
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
They are roughly chronological, though. I mean, we can say that much, since one of the uses to which they are put, storytelling-wise, is to give relative dates for ships. Thus a ship we are meant to think of as fancy and new gets a certain sort of number, relative to the rest.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Like the Prometheus.
No, wait...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, we could point out counterexamples all day, if we're so inclined, yet the fact remains that, in general, if a ship is meant to be "new" it gets one kind of number, if "old" another kind.